


walking to the bright lights in sorrow

by xephyr



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Developing Relationship, Feelings Realization, Imprisonment, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Reunions, Sexual Content, Slight Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:22:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22139260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xephyr/pseuds/xephyr
Summary: Shaw liked to imagine he was inflappable and that his heart had been frozen in ice decades ago but he learns that isn't the case.Also, Flynn goes on an adventure.
Relationships: Flynn Fairwind/Mathias Shaw
Comments: 14
Kudos: 103





	1. Chapter 1

Shaw wakes up from the soft rays of pre-dawn sunlight streaming through the porthole in his cabin that seem resolute in prying his eyelids open. He sighs privately, knowing he doesn’t have time to deliberate before sitting up and firmly nudging the man next to him awake.

“Come on, out.” He tries to sound as authoritative as possible even with his voice scratchy with sleep.

“Mm, we’ve got time.” A very unhurried and unbothered Flynn responds as he rolls over. The sunlight illuminates his broad and handsome face and messy auburn hair in a way that nearly makes Shaw’s breath catch before he seems to realize that the sun is actually out and grimaces before pulling the blankets up over his face. “Turn that off, would you?”

“Flynn,” Shaw warns, already feeling frustrated despite the hour. He’s already on edge, but why wouldn’t he be? “I don’t have time for this.”

Flynn, for all his levity, knew when to cut the act when it mattered. Well, sometimes, at least. His head peeks out from the blankets as he peers up at him, expression contemplative and resigned. Shaw usually wants nothing more than to see Flynn actually treating situations with the seriousness and delicacy required of him, but watching the wide smile disappear from Flynn’s face leaves him with a heavy feeling in his ribcage. Flynn huffs out a sigh and his hair hopelessly mussed from sleep clings stubbornly to his forehead. “Right. Wars to win, and all that.”

“You, too.” Shaw frowns at him as he brushes Flynn’s unruly bangs from his face without thinking about it. It’s more intimate than he allows, usually, but he figures he can make an exception this morning. Flynn’s brows furrow together as he registers the touch, but otherwise makes no move.

He should never have gotten this attached. It made leaving his bed seem like an insurmountable task but like all tasks presented to him, he carries through with as much dignity and grace as the situation will allow. He’s halfway into getting himself dressed before he hears Flynn likewise shuffling out of the bed, searching for the clothes he had strewn across Shaw’s cabin in his fervor. Shaw wants to admonish him for being so careless with his belongings and making a mess in his cabin, but it doesn’t seem that important in the grand scheme of things.

Something clawed at Shaw’s chest in a way that it hasn’t for years. Today the Alliance would strike against Dazar’alor and its king, and he was feeling no more ready for it than he had last night. So many had died for this, and it was hard to put it out of his mind.

The more he thought about it, the more he believed that perhaps Nazmir could have been avoided. It had been touted as the only way they could succeed in their assault, and they had all believed it. Structurally, it was sound. It had given them this precious window of opportunity, true, but perhaps there had been another way that would have yielded far less casualties. He thinks of Telaamon, then. Sacrifice was unavoidable and even necessary in war but the sheer numbers were difficult to ignore.

“Hey,” Flynn says before hugging Shaw to his chest from behind and resting his chin on his shoulder. Despite himself, Shaw feels himself tense up under the warm arms around his chest. “It’ll be fine, alright?” Flynn presses a soft kiss to the nape of his neck and Shaw has to resist the urge to pull away. “The Alliance has faced against much worse odds, I’m sure.”

“Doesn’t make it any easier.” Shaw admits before he lets his eyelids fall shut, fighting himself to relax in the other man’s hold. He still wasn’t used to all the touching that didn’t have sexual intent, no matter how hard he tried. He should feel safe like this, but the survival instincts that had gotten him to this point of his life were difficult to tamp down into anything more reasonable. He opens his eyes again when Flynn turns him around, looking at him as seriously as he had while in bed before closing the short distance between them, pressing his lips to Shaw’s in a barest brush of a kiss before pulling back just enough to rest his forehead against Shaw’s. “It’s not guaranteed I’ll survive this.” Shaw says somewhere near his lips gravely and Flynn presses a nose against his cheek.

“Nothing’s guaranteed, mate.” Flynn says, his warm breath ghosting over his face. “You’ve survived just fine before this. You’ll survive this too, I bet.”

Something nagged at Shaw; something more than the typical pre-battle nerves. It was something he couldn’t adequately put a name to and that alone made his stomach do a series of queasy flips and Shaw pushed him back firmly but gently in hopes that limiting the contact between them would ease his concerns, giving him one last stern but apologetic look. “I have to go.”

“So do I, as it happens.” Flynn smiles at him mournfully as he retreats, pulling on his boots. They get dressed the rest of the way without incident and Flynn pauses at the door, brows knit together in consternation. Something’s on his mind, Shaw can tell, but he doesn’t prompt him to share. They don’t have time for it, either way. Flynn eventually shakes his head, and whatever spell he had been under was gone. “Just meet me here afterwards, alright?”

“Alright.” With that, he turns away from him, retreating to the mirror over his sink so he can properly contend with the unruly whiskers that had started to mar his carefully cultivated appearance. The task is meticulous yet also familiarly easy enough for him to focus on as he prepares for the impending battle and also to distract himself from his racing heartbeat.

When Flynn turns the doorknob and leaves his cabin as quietly as he had come in, Shaw hadn’t once imagined that it would have been the last time he would see him.

\--

Shaw hisses through his teeth as he presses the heel of his hand against his side, feeling the dried blood that had begun to stain his armor flake off. It was nothing he couldn’t deal with and incredibly minor in comparison to many of the other 7th Legion members strewn about the deck in various states of duress as the healers worked on them, but he never really got used to the feeling of being cleaved by an axe.

The bleeding had stopped mostly, anyway. All the injury really served to do was to make him hyper aware of their surroundings and the current situation. Rastakhan was dead and the city of Dazar’alor was successfully seized. The Alliance had done exactly what they had sought out to do this morning with varying degrees of pitfalls and obstacles along the way, but they had done it. Their losses were notable and would be dealt with accordingly as they ran the numbers back at Boralus, but they had to focus on getting there first.

Once Shaw and the rest of the 7th Legion had secured the docks, it was easy enough to get everyone on board the ships of the fleet. Getting away into safety, however, was proving to be more of a challenge. Fueled by the death of their king, the Horde had boarded their own vessel and were very swiftly gaining speed and closing the distance between themselves and the Alliance’s back lines. Shaw eyes the rest of the crew warily as he comes to the conclusion that the Horde would easily overpower them in this state if they were able to get the advantage. He doesn’t voice this concern as it hardly seems wise, and unnecessary besides.

He doesn’t have to, though, when the Lord Admiral realizes the same thing as she steps up beside him. She looks every inch as exhausted as he feels but the ever present fire in her eyes smolders with intent as she watches the Horde gain yards on them.

“Make sure we get to port safely, Spymaster. I can stand by idly no longer.”

He hardly needs to tell her that she has not once stood by idly, but it’s not what she’s asking for. He schools his expression into careful indifference as he follows her gaze out towards the choppy sea. “What do you mean to do, Lady Proudmoore?” He asks, but he’s already starting to get an idea.

Her fingers flex around her staff as she adjusts her grip. “I will serve as a distraction.” She says, simple and to the point. “I trust that the Alliance will be able to return to Boralus without me.”

He looks at the perhaps two dozen or more Horde champions on their vessel before turning to silently regard the side of her face, steadfast in her appearance and set in her stance. She isn’t asking his counsel in this and really, she doesn’t have to. They’re both well aware that there are no other options available to them at this point. War, as they both know, demands sacrifice, and if there’s anyone who knows that, it’s Jaina Proudmoore.

“I’ll see to it, Lord Admiral.”

As she leaves he wonders, dangerously, if this is how it is to be. A Lord Admiral for a king. The Horde and the Alliance were forever pitted in this lifelong chess match where one figurehead was taken and as they sat there amongst themselves gloating over their perceived upper hand until the other side swiftly and decisively turned the tables yet again. It was a vicious cycle, yet neither side felt it was ever prudent to disengage. He doubted anyone ever would. After all, once you stopped seeking vengeance for what was lost, it looked perilously like defeat.

His side ached anew as Kul Tiran sloops sailed headfirst against the wind in an effort to aid the Lord Admiral, loading up their stores and setting parts of the Horde vessel ablaze with incendiary ammo. Of the flanking vessels he recognized one of them as Captain Fairwind’s and the same unease he had felt this morning as he’d combed his fingers through his hair reemerged tenfold and it was all he could do to tighten his grasp on the railing with a white-knuckle grip to ground himself.

The Horde was quick to retaliate, and ballistae shots fired from the deck into the oncoming Kul Tiran ships making their circuit around to strike again. Not all of the shots hit their mark, but the ones that mattered, did. Most whizzed through the sails or simply pierced the hull of the ships with no immediate effect, but Shaw watched as two shots effectively took out the starboard cannons on two of the sloops, and then a third—

The third shot struck gold, as it were, and Captain Flynn Fairwind’s ship splintered apart like a child’s toy before erupting into a ball of flame.

Someone might have been calling his name, but he was only distantly aware of it as his breath froze in his lungs and his world was suddenly nothing more than the pinprick of flame and wood in the distance that sank beneath the cold and unrelenting waves of the sea. He forced himself to breathe and treat this as rationally as he would anything else.

A crew of a dozen men and women meant six crates of munitions for a two week voyage, eight yards of rope for rigging, and nearly three hundred gold to outfit the ship with weaponry necessary for defenses. This was easy enough to replace. The crew, while harder, was still not impossible. Bright eyed sailors lined the ports of Boralus waiting to set sail and fight for the Alliance, and following routine interviewing and testing they would be able to do so and with handsome pay. A captain’s role, however— Flynn’s—

An unbidden hand landed on his shoulder and he was immediately brought back to the real world at an alarming speed. Halford was frowning at him for some Light-forsaken reason when he was able to tear his gaze from the wreckage getting further and further away in the distance and he shook the hand off of him. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” He manages as gracefully as he can before he stumbles over to the other side of the ship and is truly and thoroughly sick off of the railing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise it gets better


	2. Chapter 2

“Ugh.”

Flynn groans as he’s pushed roughly onto his side by a heavy steel toed boot. His bones feel like they’re made of lead as he tries and fails repeatedly to will his eyelids to open and then he’s jostled again until he’s flat on his back.

He thought the Light had some fancy place in the sky for him in the afterlife. If this was what it was to be like, he perhaps didn’t care for the Light’s supposed hospitality at all. When he was a kid and one of his mates had met his unfortunate end in the forge with an anvil, his parents had tearfully assured him that he was in a place where nothing could hurt him and the seas went on for leagues with the wind always favoring his sails and a feast every night. _Hells_ , he’d said at the tender age of eight, _why can’t I go?_

He opens his eyes this time around out of sheer frustration and finds himself looking up at an ordinary wood ceiling and into the eyes of a decidedly corporeal and angry looking Orc. Pain shoots through his left leg and he screws his eyes shut again and hisses until it subsides. Alright, he was specifically not supposed to feel pain when he died, so either he had pulled the short end of the stick or he was still alive. Judging by the Orc, he was alive. Also, judging by the fact he was missing his beloved coat, he was most definitely not in the lands of peace and tranquility.

For now, anyway. He might yet sail those Light-infused seas.

Once he felt his bearings return to him, he chanced opening his eyes once again. The Orc was still there, of course, and he realizes immediately that he’s in whatever passed for an Orcish brig. He shifts up onto his elbows with a moderate amount of effort and cranes his neck to better understand where he is and what his situation is. He can feel the rolling waves beneath him and realizes he’s on a ship, but that knowledge doesn’t give him the comfort it used to. Below his left knee, he can see that his trousers are soaked with what he assumes is his own blood and it aches as if it’s been smashed in with a warhammer. Of the cells he can see that are separated by nothing more than metal bars, he’s the only one here. Well, wasn’t he lucky.

The Orc continues to scowl at him and Flynn feels like he’s supposed to say something. He tries to be neutral in hopes that it might be a friendly Orc. “Hey.”

He shouts something in Orcish, or at least not in Common, until another Orc appears from an adjacent hallway. This one, somehow, looks much angrier than the first one.

The other Orc sneers down at him like an insect before pointing at him accusingly. “You’re the Azerite hoarder.”

Flynn’s mouth goes dry as he contemplates how to respond. He could deny it, but that probably wouldn’t do him any good. Confirming it didn’t seem to play into his cards, either. Again, he tries for a neutral approach.

“Well I, uh, haven’t got any on me if that’s what you’re asking.”

It was the wrong thing to say, he immediately learns as the Orc cuffs him across the face and sends him sprawling to the floor. His world spins for a precarious moment and he thinks he might have lost consciousness until he's pulled back up into a sitting position by the front of his water-logged shirt. The Orcs were still talking, but more at each other rather than at him.

“—Worth more alive than dead. If not, he still has valuable information for us.”

Hope surged through Flynn as he fixates on the important part of the second Orc’s sentence. “Yes, alive!” He grins, bringing his hand to his jaw to try and work it back into place after feeling like it had nearly gotten slapped off of his skull. “They’ll miss me, you know. Captain of island expeditions and all that.” Privately, however, he doubts his disappearance will be noted by anyone other than Mathias.

Oh. He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Mathias.

He’s immediately dragged out his downward spiral of despair when the second Orc laughs incredulously. “ _You’re_ the captain of the Alliance island expeditions?”

Flynn, suddenly bereft, feels like there’s an important part of this conversation that’s flown over his head. “Isn’t that what you meant?”

The Orc continues to laugh and elbows at his friend until he’s grinning as well. “I thought you were a merchant.” He rubs the mirth from his eyes before he continues. “If I had realized— Oh, this is good.” Then, directed to his friend: “Watch over the little guy, will you? I can’t believe we almost let him drown.”

Flynn feels like he’s been doused in cold water all over again and he hadn’t particularly enjoyed it the first time around. The second Orc, the mean one, finally leaves and ascends stairs that Flynn can’t see safely around a corner and he’s left alone with the first Orc once again. At least he’s not scowling at him, this time. He looks more amused than anything else which hurts his pride but it leads him to believe he isn’t in any danger of being throttled to death just yet. After his complete misreading of the situation, however, it might be preferable to stewing in his own shame.

And also, Mathias.

He tries to smile at the Orc reassuringly but it feels as shaky as he probably looks. Nothing can really be done for that, in any case. He runs a hand through his hair, wishing he had a comb, and tries again for diplomacy. “So, uh. Do you have a name?”

\--

Jaina knew what grief looked like. She knew what it felt like, tearing her heart to pieces and making her want to scream and scream until she couldn’t anymore and praying to whatever entity oversaw her life to finally end it all and save her from the misery that manifested itself so deeply into her soul that she couldn’t tell where it ended and she began. So intensely and frequently she experienced it, but it never made it easier. She had long ago stopped asking why she deserved it, because no one had an answer. She didn’t think there was one.

It’s why, now, she approaches the Spymaster with trepidation as he slouches in a bench and tilts the neck of a more than half empty bottle from side to side, not even noticing her.

The hedge maze is quiet at this time of night and the shrubbery blocks out most of the harsh wind that makes its way through Boralus, signaling the start of winter. The moon shines brilliantly tonight through clear skies and the stars twinkle endearingly, but she knows he doesn’t appreciate it. When you lose someone, you curse the skies for daring to be anything other than a torrential downpour because all you want to do is drown in it.

She knows first-hand how good the hedge maze is to hole away in and sulk, because she’s done it many times before. It’s how she finds him, she thinks.

“Spymaster.” She announces her presence following a polite cough when he still doesn’t acknowledge her when she’s hardly a yard away. He jerks his head upwards to meet her gaze with an expression of sheer surprise and stops fidgeting with the bottle as if he’s been caught doing something indecent.

“Lord Admiral,” he parrots her newfound title back at her, clearly unsure about what her presence here tonight means. He runs a hand over his face and lets his eyes shut for a brief moment as he curses under his breath. “Sorry, I… wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“That’s the beauty of this place,” she says as she takes a seat on the other side of the bench, a respectful distance away, and his eyebrows pitch together as he watches her do this. “You can be alone, here. You’re given room to think and breathe for the first time in what feels like forever.”

Shaw huffs out a defeated sigh and turns his gaze down towards the ground. “That was the plan, at least.”

It’s at this angle that she can see how disheveled he truly is. Were he anyone else, he wouldn’t look at all out of place by not having his hair combed back perfectly against his scalp and not having his facial hair meticulously styled, but he wasn’t anyone else. Shaw doesn’t do casual, yet that’s precisely how he looks now in a loose fitting shirt and plain trousers. The dark circles under his eyes seem more pronounced than usual, but that could be the light playing tricks on the sharp planes of his face.

She decides to get to the point. “What troubles you, Spymaster?”

He worries at his lip, his brows creasing together even further and Jaina wonders if she’s ever seen him this unguarded in her life. She understands now why she’s never seen him drink prior to this. Too vulnerable, and far too open. “Nothing, Lord Admiral,” he answers, just to be difficult.

“Shaw,” she says. If it were possible, he slouches even further in his seat before running a hand through his hair, uncaring of how it fell, looking worse than it had a moment ago.

“It feels inappropriate to speak of loss with you.” He says after some time and gestures towards her vaguely, but he still doesn’t look back in her direction. “I must seem like a fool. What could I possibly be feeling that you haven’t?”

“That doesn’t make your pain any less real,” she says, staring intently at his profile. “If anything, it helps me understand. That’s one of the upsides, I’ve found.”

She waits. Little by little, his resolve begins to crumble. He opens his mouth to speak, firmly snaps it shut, and shakes his head before trying again.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve went through this, so why does it feel like it is?” He snaps and Jaina’s eyebrows raise up towards her hairline at the barely contained rage. He’s not angry at her, or even her question. He’s angry at himself, frustrated with how his sorrow threatens to consume him despite his age and life experiences, and she understands. She’s grieved this way too. He presses at his eyes with his free hand and she can hear him taking a measured breath through his nose. “Apologies, Lord Admiral. I find myself rather tired, all of a sudden.” And that, she understands as well.

She watches him square his shoulders and she can feel him building up his walls once more, brick by brick. When he finally deigns to look back at her his expression is carefully blank. A muscle in his jaw twitches once before he controls that too and Jaina knows he’s not going to put down his walls again.

“Lady Proudmoore.” He inclines his head respectfully before he turns away from her again, focusing his gaze instead on the stars in the sky. It’s his way of politely ending the conversation and Jaina resigns to let him grieve alone. She wonders how Captain Fairwind ever managed to get past those walls and reach him.

She stands, adjusting the cloak around her shoulders and sees Shaw sag with relief at her imminent departure. “If it’s any consolation, I believe he loved you too.”

Shaw says absolutely nothing to this and Jaina leaves him on the bench, inebriated and angry at the world and at himself. She stops and asks one of the marines to watch and make sure he gets back to his cabin on the Redemption safely, and it’s all she can do. It’s probably the most he’ll let anyone do.


	3. Chapter 3

After several days on board as the one and only prisoner of the Horde galleon, he was starting to get used to it. If he closed his eyes he could almost imagine himself aboard a Kul Tiran galleon with the gentle roll of waves lulling him into a false sense of security and peace. Of course, that was all easily dashed once he added any of his other senses into the mix. When he managed to hear snippets of conversations of the inhabitants on deck it was in guttural Orcish, which didn’t have a hope of understanding. And once he opened his eyes... well.

He had eventually been able to wheedle the Orc that watched over him into giving him his name, which Flynn took great joy in for lack of anything else to do. His name, it turned out, was Grogg. He had been completely delighted when he found this tidbit of information out and was now determined to make a friend out of this Orc that spoke little and smiled even less as it may very well be his only way of getting out of this alive. That, and he was bored to tears.

They fed him well, at least. Distantly, he wondered if Orcs were the Horde race that ate people. He didn’t believe that to be the case but when Grogg half-heartedly slid him a plate of Greatstag Flank Steak that night he began to have his doubts.

He didn’t ask about the fate of his crew partly because he knew Grogg wouldn’t respond and if he did, he wouldn’t like the answer. He wasn’t naive enough to believe that any of them had made it out alive and in some ways, he didn’t understand why he _did_. Something kept him tethered to this world that he didn’t have the power to comprehend.

He thinks about the night before they had sailed to Zuldazar, of Mathias when he pulled him into bed insistently. He was frantic, almost, with his need and desire but he had steadfastly refused to tell Flynn how he felt. He never really did, and… Oh. He might never see him again. The thought summarily took the wind from his sails.

Though he denied it for a while, Flynn knew the Spymaster had liked him and even enjoyed his company. It sent a thrill through him every time he could almost get him to laugh, barely able to conceal a smile underneath his ridiculous moustache before smothering it again and pretending nothing was amiss. The first time he impulsively kissed him he thought the other man might kill him for it but all he did was kiss back and pin him against a wall before continuing to kiss him for the remainder of the night. It was a fond memory he liked to revisit from time to time.

Tides, what he’d give to kiss that man again.

He’s interrupted from his reverie when Grogg stomps back into his cell from above decks doing whatever it was that he did and hands him a wooden mug. Flynn sniffs at it dubiously to discern whether or not he’s being poisoned and once he realizes he doesn’t know what poison actually smells like, he takes a tentative sip. It burns as it trails down his throat and his eyelids flutter shut once he understands that he’s being given a _different_ type of poison that he’s well acquainted with. Real, proper brandy. If he didn’t feel guilty about it after thinking about Mathias not even a minute ago, he might very well kiss Grogg right on the lips.

“For me?” He asks, taking another hearty gulp from the mug. He’s found that when trying to make conversation with Grogg, it’s better if he uses as few words as possible with straightforward meanings. He doesn’t speak much Common, it appears, and Flynn speaks no Orcish whatsoever, so he compromises in whatever way he can.

“You scream when sleep,” Grogg tells him plainly, and Flynn blinks. “Don’t want to hear it.”

Well. He looks down into his mug and into the copper liquid swirling within and doesn’t feel as ecstatic as he had a second ago. It turns out that having your ship explode beneath your feet and nearly sinking to your death has rather adverse effects on your mental state. There are other harrowing things about the situation as well, but he hasn’t allowed himself to think too deeply on any of it. If you push it away then it doesn’t exist anymore, right?

“Drink,” Grogg says as he sits down on a crate nearby as if to make sure he follows through and Flynn is grateful for something to latch onto so he can leave his thoughts behind. He wants to tell Grogg he has absolutely no aversion to alcohol whatsoever but he figures he might get that point across in a non-verbal way that was perhaps even more effective so he tips back the mug and swallows all of its contents in four seconds flat. Warmth spreads through his chest in the very welcome way that alcohol does along with the heady fuzziness that slowly begins its ascent to his head. When he looks over at Grogg, he looks downright impressed. 

Flynn grins widely at him and taps the side of the now-empty mug. “More?”

Grogg almost seems tempted before he shakes his head. “More tomorrow.”

It was just as well, anyway. He’s made aware of how strong this apple brandy by how fast it goes to his head and Flynn is almost thankful that he doesn’t refill his mug. If he were in Boralus or Tiragarde Sound or-- basically, if he were anywhere else and not a prisoner kept captive on an Orc galleon, he would have jumped on it. He lays down on his side facing towards Grogg once he realizes his arms are going to give out at some point if he keeps propping himself up on his elbows and beats them to the punch.

“Sleep?” Grogg asked, confused.

“Just getting comfortable.” It feels awkward at first to talk to Grogg like this by enunciating every word as carefully as he can because he’s not sure if it sounds like he’s mocking him or if he’s genuinely trying to help him understand. Grogg mostly just grunts in response most times, so he doesn’t know if it even works.

They sit in silence for a while and Grogg idly pulls out a dagger and a whetstone and the sounds of the dagger being gently sharpened makes Flynn think of Mathias so much that it almost hurts. 

What did Mathias think, right now? Does he think he’s dead? Does he think he’s just missing? He doesn’t know what Mathias saw that day. He was probably giving orders on one of the lead ships, unaware of what was happening behind him. He didn’t want to imagine that he had seen his ship explode because, while improbable, there’s also no way the other man knew his ship by heart.

And the worst question of all: has he already moved on?

“Grogg,” he says from his place on the floor in an attempt to get his attention and to distract himself from whatever dark path his mind is insistent on sending him on.

Grogg grunts in response but still has his attention on his knife. He’s listening to him now, at least.

“What do you call, uh…” What were he and Mathias, anyway? Boyfriends feels wrong, lovers feels too intimate, and fuckbuddies wasn’t accurate anymore. “What do you call people who fuck each other?” He settles on, delicately as ever.

Grogg looks at him and considers the question. Flynn is hoping for anything that isn’t a noncommittal grunt. “Mate,” he answers at last.

_Mate_. Even that felt a little off the mark, but it was closer. Of course, mate was embedded in his vocabulary and had been for as long as he could remember but he can tell by the way Grogg says it that it means something entirely different and holds a much more significant weight. He can work with that. “I have one, I think. I miss him.” And he misses me, he doesn’t say, because his earlier thought about Mathias moving on rears its ugly head and he doesn’t know if he can reliably believe that Mathias does miss him. “Do you have a mate?” He tries instead.

He doesn’t know why he’s engaging in this conversation. By now he’s more than pleasantly buzzed and he feels like he has to tell someone about Mathias before he gets killed or fed to the Tauren (because maybe it’s Tauren who eat people after all) because he needs them to know about Mathias.

“Yes,” he says simply, returning to sharpen his knife quietly.

“Here?” 

Grogg shakes his head at that. “Northrend.”

Flynn murmurs his apologies and before he can stop himself, he asks: “Do you love your mate?”

Grogg turns to look at him as if he’s sprouted three tentacles from his head. Three, because two wasn’t enough and four might be considered excessive. “Your mate, love?” He asks with a smirk as if he’s trying to make Flynn realize that he’s asked a stupid question.

It gives him pause at first and the implications terrified him. He doesn’t look back at Grogg as he realizes-- truly realizes, that maybe that’s exactly it. Should an epiphany like this send a chill down his spine with a cold sweat and make his heart rebel against his ribcage? He can’t recall ever feeling like this before, so he’s unsure of the protocol. He thinks about the nights they’d spent together and of the creeping fondness in Mathias’ voice when he thought Flynn was nearly asleep and wouldn’t remember. He thinks about how the other man would grumble and grouse under his breath when Flynn surprised him with breakfast more than once just because he could before accepting it and offering as nonchalantly as he could the option of sharing it with him. A million different things, really.

“Yeah,” he says after a minute as a secret smile becomes something else entirely, making his cheeks ache in its sincerity. “I do.”


	4. Chapter 4

They could put an end to the war in a matter of weeks, he had said. Looking back, he wants to kick himself in the shins for being so openly idealistic.

He sits back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his face and resting his eyes for the first time in what felt like days. He probably looks like a mess but since he had quarantined himself to his private office on their return to Boralus it hardly seems to matter. It wouldn’t have, at least, if he hadn’t let himself be accosted in the hedge maze a few nights ago.

That’s neither here nor there. It happened, was all. Thinking about it does nothing to ease the weight in his heart, so he doesn’t.

He lets out a long suffering sigh and opens his eyes again to pore over the many, many tasks laid out before him written out onto thin sheets of parchment. From the gnomes, despair at the loss of Mekkatorque. Some still held hope that he might recover but Shaw wasn’t about to make himself believe it when even Jaina wasn’t able to salvage anything. Hope didn’t seem to work out for him, at least.

Anyway.

From Kelsey Steelspark, he had received troubling news about Ashvane and the Horde’s involvement in breaking her out of Tol Dagor. This was what he put his time into as of late, demanding updates and confirmations of the validity of the missives he had been given and avoiding the rest of his commanding officers when it wasn’t necessary. He was still coming to terms with things.

With Dazar’alor, mostly. Rastakhan, of course, the destruction of over half the Horde’s fleet, and the Alliance’s seize of the ancient Zandalari stronghold.

And, hells, Flynn.

What Jaina said to him that night had nagged at him incessantly and he had turned it in his head every single day in every way imaginable until it rotted away at him like a poison. _He loved you, too_. Would it be better if it were true? No, definitely not. It was much easier to contend with his state of mind when he believed that Flynn had simply been using him for a cheap fuck and a warm bed. He scowls at himself, grabbing for a piece of cheese from the plate he had pushed to the side of his desk. It’s not as sharp as he prefers, but he supposes he has only Elling Trias to blame for how his tastes had evolved over the years. He wasn’t especially hungry, but he made himself eat anyway as his weight had never truly recovered after Felsoul Hold and he refused to let himself waste away again.

Flynn hadn’t used him, of course. It wasn’t in his nature to be so callous but Shaw was set on inventing a new version of Flynn in his head that was cold and inhospitable. More like himself, really. If he didn’t have any fond memories of the man then there wouldn’t be anything to miss and he would be able to just get _on_ with his life. He wasn’t quite there, yet, but perhaps one day he would be. Considering his line of work, deception came easily to him and it was only a matter of time until he could successfully employ it against himself.

He’s grateful for the distraction when he hears a firm rap of knuckles against his door. He smooths down his moustache as best he can with his thumb and pointer finger before he makes to stand and answer the door. It would have to be good enough.

“Good tidings from Steelspark,” Halford Wyrmbane tells him when he opens the door before taking one look at Shaw and frowning, clearly displeased. “Are you coming out of here any time soon?”

Shaw ignores the second question. “And those tidings would be?”

Halford, thankfully, lets it go easily. He only cared for Shaw on a purely professional basis and whatever crisis he was going through meant not a whit to him until it began to actively impair his ability to work. He wished everyone else would take the same approach. “Her and the champion retrieved a ciphered message from Ashvane’s loyalists. With the message deciphered, we should have a pretty strong lead on her and her whereabouts.”

“I see,” he responds blandly, more pleased than he has been in days. “I take it Steelspark wants me to decipher it.”

“Well, no. They saved us the trouble and did it themselves.”

Apparently, Kelsey was more adept with codebreaking than he thought. Gnomes were resourceful in that way. “How?” He asks anyway, because he wants to know if he should adjust the cipher of his own correspondences knowing that she may be able to intercept his messages before they got out.

“The champion got some decoder ring from the leader’s corpse. They slaughtered a whole lot of those loyalists.”

Shaw pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Subterfuge was beginning to become nothing more than a fond memory, apparently. “Fantastic.”

“I thought more or less the same thing. The Lord Admiral will be going over our findings in the morning, and I figured you might want to be kept in the know,” Halford says. He frowns at him again before turning to depart. “Look alive, Shaw.”

And that’s why, he realizes, he’s come down here. His absence has been noted and he’s letting him know about it as subtly as he can, which is actually rather heavy-handed to anyone with eyes. He suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. “And you, Wyrmbane.”

When he closes his door he chances a glance at himself in the mirror and sighs in resignation. He really needed to shave. The depression he had let himself slide into was manifesting itself far too obviously if even Halford could see it so he gathered his soap and his razor and set to it, not thinking about Flynn even once.

—

A week in, he still doesn’t know what they mean to do with him. He can’t even imagine where they could be sailing after seven days with no signs of stopping. Maybe they were lost and needed directions. If they let him out of this cell, he might even help them learn how to use a compass and how to read a map. He was feeling generous enough.

There were healers on board, it turned out, who could tell as soon as they entered his cell one day when he was feeling heated and delirious that the wound in his leg had become infected. He could have told them that for free if they asked. He’d kept his comments to himself partly because he had been so tired and treated the limb in question with a proper cleaning which burned like hell and with a rough rag soaked in alcohol which, as it turned out, also burned like hell.

He believed that they might have been doing him a favor just for the sake of it but it probably had more to do with keeping him from wasting away on their long journey to whereverland and perishing before they got any information off of him. They didn’t treat him too gently, at least, but that might have just been Orcish hospitality on a normal day.

He had been dozing in and out all day until he felt the ship slowing down beneath his back and the Horde shouting orders to each other on deck. He frowns, pushing himself up on his elbows and hauling himself into a sitting position on a crate he had fashioned for a chair in his cell. The ship was definitely stopping. Sweat breaks out on his neck as he imagines the new levels of torment he might yet experience, and soon. Also, it was the Forsaken that ate people, he was pretty sure.

He’s saved the trouble of imagining what fate is to befall him when an Orc descends the stairs and regards him, snarling, before hauling him up onto his feet as if he weighs nothing at all. Flynn yelps at the weight shifting, however briefly, onto his bad leg. He shamelessly grasps onto the Orc’s thick arm for balance as he’s pulled along to the stairs he’s never actually been able to see until this point. “Careful!” He says, as if it will actually make the Orc re-evaluate how rough he’s being with him.

It doesn’t, of course. “Quiet,” is all the Orc says as he lugs him up the stairs and into the sunlight he hasn’t seen in over a week. He’s momentarily blinded by the sun shining brilliantly above in the cloudless sky and he hasn’t been more thankful to feel the harsh rays of sunlight warming his skin in his entire life. The relief is short lived when he’s shoved forward and tumbling down to his knees onto the hard deck, which, _ouch_ — and when he manages to look up after the overwhelming pain has curbed itself into something less all encompassing he’s met with angry eyes of an Orc who looks wholly unimpressed with his presence.

It’s the mean Orc, from before. Barring Grogg, none of them had been particularly nice to him, but this one was especially rude. He chances a look out towards the horizon and sees land, orange and dusty and rather unfriendly looking in the very near distance. They’re nearing a dock crowded with various other Horde ships, fishing and auxiliary alike, and beyond that loom intimidating walls of steel and brick and bone. Fantastic. He’d heard of Orgrimmar before, of course, but he had never really planned on visiting.

“Bring this one to the Blightcaller,” he snarls in Common for whatever reason without taking his eyes off of him as if Flynn could do something stupid like _run_ in this state and two Orcs flank him, yanking him upright, and Flynn has the good sense this time to keep his weight balanced entirely on his right leg. “Maybe he’ll get something out of him before he feasts on his remains.” Inwardly, Flynn beams at himself for being correct in his assumption about Forsaken eating habits before he realizes that, right, that’s not a good thing.

The truth of the matter is, he doesn’t even have any valuable information to impart on his captors. Perhaps they think he has a much bigger role in the Alliance’s assault than he actually had or even vaults upon vaults of Azerite locked away in his closet that he could offer them. The Alliance has some vaults, surely, but he doesn’t know where and beyond that, he’s never even been offered a tour. Disappointing, considering he had amassed most of it. The panic he thought he might have been able to tamp down returns in full force when the ship pulls up against the dock and lowers its gangplank, clattering against the wood and signaling the beginning of his assured death.

At the end of the gangplank stands Grogg with a curious piece of tattered fabric under his arm. He says something in Orcish to the two that had kindly escorted him to this point and they shrug, both letting go of Flynn in the same instant. Flynn pitches this way and that, resigning to fall on his leg yet again until a hand is roughly pulling him up to stand. If they keep this up, he’s going to dislocate a shoulder. He doesn’t know what’s happened, exactly, as the two Orcs retreat back to the ship and Grogg pulls him along towards the gates of Orgrimmar alone.

Grogg stops once they clear the harbor and are behind a rock that shields them from the hot sun. Flynn leans himself against the densely packed dirt and exclaims with a hoot as Grogg tosses him the hopelessly crumpled and salt-dried fabric. “My coat?” he asks as he feels tears of gratitude beginning to form at the corners of his eyes. He hasn’t felt this ecstatic about anything in over a week.

The Orc shrugs as if it makes no difference to him whatsoever. Flynn tugs it over his shoulders which is made difficult by how dried out the fabric is, but nothing has ever felt sweeter. He pats his coat down, admiring how it looks on him and—

He looks up at Grogg with a hopelessly confused arch of a brow when he feels the distinct lump of his hearthstone still in his breast pocket. Again, Grogg shrugs, but this time he has a smug look on his face.

“You— why?” He asks, because he doesn’t understand. 

“Go,” Grogg tells him. “Send Azerite.”

A single tear does roll down his cheek, then, and he grins up at the Orc with everything he has and grasps his hearthstone firmly in his first. “I’ll invite you to the wedding, big guy.”

The sunny landscape of Kalimdor fades from view and within seconds is replaced by the familiar sounds and sights of the Snug Harbor Inn, the damp air hitting his cheeks and it feels almost as good as getting his coat had felt. People hearth in here all the time so no one offers him more than a glance or two. The innkeeper, however, does a double take. “Flynn fuckin’ Fairwind,” he says, eyebrows raising into his hairline. “Thought you were dead.”

“It’ll take more than that to kill me.” And then Flynn barks out a laugh, because what else can he do? “Get out my tab, Wesley. I’m buying a round for everyone!”


	5. Chapter 5

He’s out on deck early in the morning before the sun can even begin to touch the sails of the Wind’s Redemption with full intention of breaking his fast. The harbor was moderately quiet, as it often was at this hour, and Shaw allowed himself to experience a measure of peacefulness as foot traffic on deck was practically nonexistent with most of the other officers still asleep or simply not wanting to leave the warmth of their cabins as the winter chill began to set in.

The moment of peace and quiet, however brief, is shattered when one of his 7th Legion agents loudly steps on board. He hides his disappointment in the man’s absolute lack of subtlety before turning to face him and is immediately stopped short when he’s being handed a letter with a crude red wax seal.

“From the Horde, Master Shaw,” the agent named Simmons tells him a bit too loudly, as if he’s a complete idiot. He’s young, he can tell, but still old enough to know better. He doesn’t feel like giving a lecture today, luckily, so he lets it slide.

Shaw takes it wordlessly and breaks the seal with his thumb. He reads over the surprisingly elegant script (Blood Elves were known to be rather showy with their penmanship) which was a direct contradiction to the gauche demands that they spell out. They’re demanding an entire cargo ship filled to the brim with Azerite, and he nearly scoffs bitterly at the absolute gall that the Horde seems to possess in troves. He reads over the next part and stops. Then, he reads it again.

“When did you receive this?” he asks, unable to tear his eyes away from the words in front of him.

“Yesterday afternoon, sir.” When Shaw whips his head up to glare at him incredulously, the boy holds up his hands in defense and hastens to add, “I wasn’t given clearance to deliver it until this morning, I promise.”

_We have your captain,_ it said. Either they meant to parade Fairwind’s corpse around just to spite him, or he was alive. The first option, while not impossible, turned improbable when he had to wonder how they would have even identified his remains. So, Fairwind was alive. For now, at least, unless they’d killed him by this morning.

“Thank you, Simmons,” he says absently and with a note of finality as he reads over the letter once more. The agent takes it for the dismissal that it is and departs the ship as delicately as he had arrived. Which was, to say, not delicately at all.

He lets out a breath he doesn’t know he was holding and leans against the railing, wondering what kind of sick joke the world is playing on him. He’s not foolish enough to _hope_ , and yet.

And yet.

—

“Someone for you, Master Shaw.”

Shaw doesn’t bother looking up from the papers he has in his hand as he makes a noncommittal grunt in response, gesturing vaguely for whoever had come for him to step on board. Requesting literal tons of Azerite, as it happened, was a precariously difficult task that required a deft hand and diplomacy. He had written out a first draft, scrapped it, a second draft, scrapped again, and was now working on his third as the sun surely but steadily had risen up into the sky without him noticing. Realistically they couldn’t afford the demands the Horde were making, but Shaw was willing to try. Fondness had made an utter fool of him.

“Thought I might get a warmer welcome than that.”

Shaw looks up too easily and is stuck in place when he sees a ghost. His eyes catch on auburn hair gently tousled by the sea breeze and a wide, disarming smile.

Flynn Fairwind is standing before him, looking every inch as alive as he shouldn’t be.

The deck of the Redemption seems to sway under his feet and he shoots a hand out to grasp at the railing behind him when he feels it pitch forward dangerously. For a moment he’s transported back in time and he feels rather than sees Flynn’s ship exploding on the horizon before it sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor, and his breath catches in his throat.

It’s a feeling he can’t possibly describe.

The other man’s brow creases as he watches him, obvious and brazen in unguarded worry. “You didn’t know?”

Crossing over to him wordlessly, he pats his hands over his broad chest and then the familiar rough stubble over his jaw to make sure the man isn’t simply a figment of his imagination. Flynn’s real and _solid_ arms wrap around his shoulders, pulling him face-first into his chest and Shaw sinks into it easily in his shock, feeling Flynn’s erratic heartbeat against his cheek. It feels so natural to wrap his arms around the other man’s thick middle, and he doesn’t deny himself it. Fingers card through his hair and it pulls a choked sound from his lips involuntarily.

“Hey, hey.” Flynn says somewhere near his temple, shushing him as he tightens his hold on him. He doesn’t say anything else as Shaw tries and fails to keep himself from shaking in his arms.

He knows he’s out in the open, exposed to everyone and everything here on the deck of the Wind’s Redemption, but it’s secondary. It does, however, give him the sense of mind not to break apart right here and now. He makes himself _breathe_ before he bursts at the seams into splinters— like Flynn’s ship had that day— and shudders and the unbidden comparison. Flynn shushes at him again before saying, “I’m here, Mathias.”

“I love you.” He hears himself say before he can stop it. Once it leaves his mouth he can’t find it in himself to take it back and he realizes he doesn’t really want to, anyway. It startles him in how earnestly he means it.

Shaw hears Flynn’s breath stutter against him and the gentle movements of his fingers against his scalp halt completely. He sounds positively terrified, chuckling uneasily after the moment had gone on too long and Shaw realizes he’s made a rather egregious miscalculation. It’s confirmed when Flynn situates his hands on his shoulders and holds him back, desperately searching his eyes for something.

“If you didn’t notice, my leg’s out of commission.” He says with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, pointing down to the mess of bandages below his left knee and the crutch hoisted under his arm that Shaw actually had _not_ noticed. “Can we sit somewhere?”

Shaw can hardly look him in the eye anymore. _All this strife_ , he thinks. _All this strife just to be turned away_. Flynn has never owed him anything, so he can hardly blame him. A foolish part of him had just _hoped_ the way he had hoped in his twenties for something more than what he had and like it had then, it crushes him. He swallows down the lump in his throat as he works up the courage to meet the insistent gaze he can feel burning his face like a brand. He wasn’t aware he was still capable of experiencing something as trivial as heartbreak.

“Council’s in twenty, Master Shaw,” General Shandris tells him from her place hardly ten paces away. When he looks up at her he finds her watching him and he’s relieved not to find an ounce of pity in her gaze. She’s seen and heard more than she should have, but it isn’t as if they had given her a choice. Nonetheless, he’s thankful for something to focus on that isn’t the sharp sting of dejection and he pulls out of Flynn’s hold completely.

“Cabin’s in the same place, yeah?” Flynn asks quietly, and Shaw manages to meet his eyes this time. “I’ll wait for you.”

—

When he has the good graces to open his eyes hours later he’s met with Mathias’ back in his office chair with his damnable perfect posture reading whatever he has in front of him. He’s changed out of his armor into a loose shirt and sensible trousers not made of leather, at least. Sharp as always, Mathias turns in his seat when he hears Flynn stirring in his bunk behind him. “You’re awake.” He regards him with an emotion he can’t discern as his eyes flick over him and the nest of blankets Flynn had shrouded himself in this morning before he had inevitably taken a nap. He was tired and stressed out besides, so it was really only a matter of time. Mathias’ bed always _was_ comfortable.

Flynn swallows down whatever traitorous thing has lodged in his throat and pats the empty space of the bed beside him. “Why are you over there, then?” he asks with a levity he doesn’t quite feel.

The air is awkward and oppressive where he had once imagined that it would be warm and welcoming. Mathias doesn’t immediately join him and instead lingers in his seat, watching him from a safe distance.

It’s nothing like what he dreamed about while in captivity aboard that Orc vessel. At this point in his fantasy, Mathias would be crooning filth in his ear and holding him down as he fucked into him and Flynn would be grasping onto those slim shoulders for dear life with promises of love on his lips.

Right. Love. That was probably why Mathias was regarding him with such caution and hesitation. He had said something like that to him on deck this morning and Flynn had just stood there like an idiot, saying nothing in return. He had _wanted_ this, he thought. He thought he had come to terms with his mess of feelings during those lonely nights locked up in his cell but now that the opportunity was presenting himself, he had no idea how to proceed. It scared him in a way he wasn’t expecting.

It was easier when he thought he was alone in this. He could imagine coming aboard the Wind’s Redemption with grand declarations of love and Mathias would scoff at him before scolding him for making a scene and would send him on his way. None of that happened, though, and he still didn’t understand.

“Please?” He tries again and Mathias finally stands before stalking over to his bunk and sitting himself on its edge. Flynn pulls him back so he’s laying down halfway on the bed before leaning over him and pressing his nose into his cheek, giving him ample time to be aware of his intentions and to deny him if need be. He does nothing at all, so Flynn tilts his chin until he’s kissing him as gently as he can until Mathias finally sighs into his mouth and kisses him back. It’s exhilarating even when it’s like this, soft and unhurried and chaste.

Mathias pushes him off by his shoulder, causing a twinge of anguish to grip his heart painfully when he thinks this is over until Mathias is pressing that same shoulder back into the mattress to flip their positions before his mouth descends on his once more in a glorious and breathtaking moment. Flynn’s hands fly up and hold onto either side of his face partly to get another angle and give him better access to that beautiful mouth but also, mostly, to stop him from pulling away again. He’ll die without this, he thinks.

It doesn’t work. Flynn chases the other man’s lips with his own as Mathias pulls back and pins into his shoulder against the mattress to keep him in place as his gaze darts between Flynn’s eyes and lips before it finally settles on his eyes. There’s a sadness in his gaze and Flynn hates himself for it because he doesn’t want to deal with it; doesn’t know how to begin. It’s gone the instant he notices it and is replaced with steely indifference that doesn’t quite convince Flynn of his detachment from the situation.

“I understand if you don’t feel the same,” Mathias says as his eyes fall back to his mouth once more. He doesn’t elaborate on what he’s referring to, but it isn’t as if Flynn doesn’t know what he means. “However, I would appreciate it if you stayed with me this night.”

Flynn wants to reach into his chest and rip out his heart just to show Mathias that hey, _look_ , my heart practically _blooms_ when it’s with you and it can’t possibly go on without this, what we _have_ , but he can’t get the damned words out. His hands simply trail over Mathias’ sinewy chest to feel his thundering heartbeat beneath his palm before pulling him back down by his neck to meet his lips. Mathias melts into it as he lets himself he kissed, tugging at his own shirt when he feels Flynn feebly trying to divest him of it. Flynn likewise follows suit even though he is loath to stop kissing him even for a second.

This, he knows. He can do the physical part of this just fine and usually, it’s all that’s ever asked of him. Mathias is naked when he straddles his thighs next and Flynn’s hands grab onto wherever he can until Mathias hisses at him when his fingers skitter over a jagged edge of skin on his side. His concern outweighs the need between his legs and he turns Mathias in his hands to get a better look at him in the dim candlelight. Just below his ribcage lies ugly bruised skin and a row of stitches holding him together and Flynn looks up at him in question.

“It’s healing. I’m fine,” Mathias assures him distractedly, reaching down between them into the waistband of Flynn’s shorts, getting his hand on him without a moment’s hesitation. “Just fuck me.”

He’s sitting up to crash their mouths together again messily before either of them can catch their breath and settles them both back against the headboard. Mathias makes a needy sound against him at the shift and his mouth moves to his cheek and over his jaw, huffing out stuttered hot breaths of air against his skin until they’re both breathing the same heated air.

“Mathias,” he breathes into his hair. _I need this,_ he doesn’t say.

He groans as an oil-slick hand grips his cock and coats it as thoroughly as possible, and Flynn clearly hadn’t been paying attention because he doesn’t even know when he had managed to get any oil. Mathias hardly stretches himself at all before he’s settling over his thighs and sinking onto his lap, sighing as he goes. Flynn looks at him, taking in his concentrated expression and messy hair and distinct moustache and laughs as he breaks out into a smile.

His smile only widens when Mathias looks back up him with a familiar twist of his lips that tell him of his irritation. Flynn holds the other man’s face in his hands when his brows crease together and laughs again. He was so, so stupid.

He _gets_ it, now; gets it in a way that he couldn’t quite understand before. He needed this level of intimacy and this exquisite type of connection, it turned out, before it all made sense to him. He holds Mathias there and runs a thumb over his lips and all he wants to do is kiss that annoyed scowl off of his face for the rest of his life. 

“I love you,” he laughs breathlessly as Mathias freezes on top of him. And then he says it again, because he can. “I love you, fuck, _Mathias_ , I—”

Mathias’ lips claim his once again with a desperation and urgency that steal his breath away all over again and Flynn’s fingers grip against the nape of his neck, tangling themselves as much as they can in Mathias’ stupid cropped hair and then Mathias is canting his hips _just so_ in a way that makes him shudder. “What took you so long, you damned idiot?” He whispers harshly against his lips, sounding truly and earnestly annoyed with him despite the way he sags in relief.

Mathias is smiling at him now so genuinely and Flynn is sure that the rest of Azeroth is weeping because there is nothing out there on any corner of the map that looks even half as beautiful as he does right now. “I don’t know,” he answers honestly, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. “Do you think you can find it in your heart to forgive me?”

“Ask me again in the morning.”

“I’m asking you now,” he laughs once more until it devolves into a long and drawn out moan when Mathias bears his hips down on him.

“I told you to fuck me, Captain,” Mathias says instead with a grin. “When were you planning on doing it?”

“Now’s as good a time as any, I suppose,” he grins back as he admires him through half lidded eyes, feeling like he’s walking on air. He pulls Mathias’ hips down onto his cock just as he bucks his own hips into that incredible heat and Mathias’ arms latch around his shoulders and curses under his breath, pressing his face into the hollow of Flynn’s throat. “I just hope you’re ready for it.”


	6. Epilogue

The first sign of trouble, he thinks, is when Flynn brings him a tray of homemade breakfast in bed. Fresh bacon, eggs (scrambled, the way he likes) and only slightly burnt spice bread look up at him from the tray and while his stomach makes a pleased sound, he doesn’t go for it right away. Seeing as there hadn’t been any spice bread in any of his cabinets, it meant that Flynn had actually ventured into the Trade District sometime this morning in the cold to get some. He looks between it and Flynn’s increasingly sheepish expression as he sits on the edge of the bed before Shaw gives up and just asks him. “Alright, what did you break?” If it’s the stove, Light help him—

“Oh, come on. When was the last time I broke something?” Flynn laughs before stealing a slice of bacon from the tray. The flush that makes it way over the collar of his loose linen shirt and up onto his neck does absolutely nothing to prove his supposed innocence.

“I feel like I’m about to find out,” Shaw frowns at him, pulling himself from the mess of blankets Flynn had gotten him tangled in over the course of the night so he can contend with whatever the man is trying and failing to tell him on more even ground. “Alright, what?”

“I wish you were less observant, you know. I’d hate that about you if I didn’t love you for it.” Shaw rolls his eyes, pulls back the blankets entirely, and shifts out of the bed so he can sit next to Flynn. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“No promises.”

Flynn continues on as if he hadn’t said anything at all. “Alright, well, it’s been… What, five years?” He was off by a week, but he appreciates the sentiment nonetheless. When Shaw says nothing, he continues. “I was thinking we could maybe…. I don’t know. Get serious about this.”

“You already live with me,” Shaw counters easily, but he thinks he knows where he’s heading with this. Apprehension settles itself in his gut as Flynn worries at his bottom lip and oh, no. That’s _exactly_ where he’s going with this.

“I don’t want to fuck anyone but you ever again,” Flynn tells him as he turns to face him fully, and his smile outshines the sun on a clear day. “I thought I had something more romantic in me, but that’s it. Can you just say yes and end my suffering, here?”

When Flynn moves in to close the inches between them, Shaw holds him back with hands on his chest. He raises an eyebrow at him and gives him the most unimpressed look he can despite the way his heart is hammering in his chest. “Ask me properly, first.”

“Marry me?” Flynn asks with a dreamy sigh. “Please?”

If he had a mind for it he might pretend to consider it but he doesn’t so he cups Flynn’s handsome face in his hands and waits until the other man's eyes settle on his own. “Flynn, you idiot,” he says with all the fondness in the world and then he’s kissing him, feeling lighter than he has in years.

“Is that a yes?” Flynn asks breathlessly even as he pushes him back against the mattress and hovers over him on his elbows. “If so, I have a few good friends I’d like to invite if we end up having a ceremony. If you’re saying yes, that is.”

“What do you think, Captain Fairwind?”

“Mm, how about Captain Shaw?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Captain Fairwind-Shaw?” He laughs against his lips and Shaw can’t stop himself as he smiles against him. “Throw me a bone here, love.”

Shaw wraps his arms around his shoulders and pulls him down until Flynn’s chest is flush against his own and trails his lips reverently along the other man’s jawline. “We’ll see.”


End file.
